“The person who can learn by observation can create his own culture.”
― Santosh Kalwar

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Overcoming the fear of getting out of line

I knew from personal experience the
painful and humiliating consequences of stepping out of line, even though it
ended up being only a kind of flick on the nose. One November, when my daughter
was a baby, my husband, Sergei, and I decided to participate in the annual
celebration of the Great October Revolution. We joined the parade that marched
through the streets of Sverdlovsk, to end up in the main city square, taking
Julia in her stroller with us. But we soon fell out of step. It was unbearably
cold, and not only was our little daughter getting cold, but we had
overestimated our own endurance. We decided to find a shorter route to the
central square, where loud music was playing and a voice kept shouting out
cheerful words of greeting and salutation to all the marching columns with
flags and banners.

When we reached the
central square, we tried to join another column that was marching toward the
Lenin’s monument. But our attempt to re-join the stream of marching people was
suddenly stopped. Policemen and activists, red-faced from the bitter cold,
began pushing us away from the edge of the crowd with rude comments. That was
such a contrast to the celebration mood around us!

We felt like we were the
outcast. The same destiny awaited others, who fell out of step. None of the
marchers stopped and interceded for us–not even for me, a young woman with a
baby. When the police got us into the side street, they gave vent to words.
Swearing and filthy idioms I had never heard poured down on me. We looked
frantically around, trying to find a way to escape, but the street was blocked
at the end by a Black Maria police van–something I had seen only in the movies
before. All of us in the side street were being shoved toward the open doors of
the van, where hands reached out to grab us. I began shouting too, trying to
make excuses. Then I suddenly jerked the stroller with all my strength and
jumped out of the vulnerable crowd, and somehow, miraculously, we slipped away.

That's how important
it was not ever to leave the track, not even by chance and without any hidden
purpose. That's how important it was to march in column formation, preferably
as near the head of the column as possible.

But after perestroika,
what did the country do for those who had never fallen out of step, who had
worked harder and more diligently than others, who had all their papers in
order? Nothing. Their pensions, as often as not, were less than those of people
who had never worked at all or who had done poor quality work. Moral losses can
cause more suffering than financial ones. Such poor retirees had to suffer both
morally and materially: they suffered from humiliation, and with almost no
means they barely managed to survive.

But finding the
freedom to be out of the track, I continue stepping out of line to be faithful
to who I am regardless the consequences. I'm trying to walk my own walk,
listening to the people on the margins, not to the loud cheerful words that are
shouted in the center.

Lydia Istomina

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Being bullied at work and in life? Learn to laugh... and leave

This blog is a collection of short stories that work just like medicine. You can take it with a cup of tea, with a glass of wine or by itself. Besides that you get a fresh perspective on life you get an extra load of laughter. Laughing is good for you!